Private airports at Bangalore and Hyderabad have proposed heavy user development fees. The UDF is much higher compared to leading airports in the world.
Kerala Minister Saji Cheriyan on Wednesday announced his resignation amidst mounting criticism from various quarters, including the Opposition, over his controversial remarks against the Constitution recently.
CPI-M veteran Pinarayi Vijayan, who led the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to an unprecedented consecutive victory in the April 6 assembly polls, on Thursday took oath as chief minister of Kerala for the second time along with 20 ministers.
Unlike previous days, the House even saw Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front members standing up from their seats and locking horns with opposition members, prompting the Speaker to warn both sides.
'If Pinarayi Vijayan gets another term, Kerala will be a state where everybody has a house.'
'Rahul Gandhi wants a group under the name 'new generation'. But look at the people who surround him.'
'Continuity in a common agenda is essential, not to disrupt the progress achieved so far,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Setting aside their political differences, the ruling CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front and Opposition Congress headed United Democratic Front, once again came together to launch a joint fight against the Centre on the CAA, which has seen unprecedented protests all over the country.
Pinarayi is exploring the potentials of 'socialism with Indian characteristics'. The next five years under Pinarayi's watch will be a transformative period for Kerala's development, observes M K Bhadrakumar.
'The presence of Rahul Gandhi and his campaigning for the Congress will make a general difference, but whether it will make a saving difference, not sure.'
Kerala Finance Minister K M Mani resigned on Tuesday night after pressure mounted on him from the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front to quit.
A high voter turnout was recorded in West Bengal, Assam Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry assembly elections on Tuesday. The massive polling exercise following COVID-19 health protocol and involving lakhs of personnel began at 7 am and the last hour from 6 pm to 7 pm was set aside for COVID-19 patients and those under isolation. The counting of votes in the states will be held on May 2.
The Left rewrote history in Kerala on Sunday by becoming the first government to get a second term in four decades but its fortunes fell to a historic low in West Bengal where it failed to bag even one seat, resulting in its complete decimation in a state it once ruled for over three decades.
Meena said political parties should be responsible enough to decide to what extent they should use the Sabarimala issue during the campaign.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would accompany him to Wayanad.
'Instead of camping in the cities and leading the party, leaders have to go to the interiors of the country.' 'The Congress is losing touch with the common man.'
Unlike the LDF and NDA nominees who are at ground zero and campaigning hard every day, the Congress candidate's campaign is undertaken in absentia, dependent on an army of local and imported from the rest of Kerala Congresswomen and men.
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
The AGP, which has ruled the state on its own twice, will play the junior partner and contest 24 seats while the rest 126 will be divided among BJP and three smaller outfits, with the saffron party leading the alliance.
With Pinarayi Vijayan set to be chief minister, what will be the role for party patriarch V S Achuthanandan? And what are the key takeways from the election results in Kerala?
Scripting history, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday stormed to power in Assam bagging a government in the north east for the first time dethroning the Congress which also lost Kerala while Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee retained power in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal with spectacular victories.
'More than losing Bengal, the worry for their national leadership is the current crisis.' 'If people perceive that the government does not do enough, then there's trouble.'
Normal life was affected across Kerala by the dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the Left Democratic Front on Monday to protest the Centre's move to implement key recommendations of the Kasturirangan report on Western Ghats conservation.
Voters are disillusioned with the two rival fronts in the state and there are no effective alternatives either. G Sreedathan explains
'Why do they talk about Narendra Modi insulting Oommen Chandy when he himself informed the PMO that he would not be available? Why did he write to Delhi that he was preoccupied on the 15th? After that, he should not make such noise about the function.'
'In the long term, the party that is going to be irrelevant is the Left.' 'It seems absurd that the people of Kerala are the last ones to wake up to the reality that this kind of discredited dogmatic ideological politics has no place in the modern world.'
'The CPI-M indulges in senseless talk. Be it the solar scam or the National Games scam, did the CPI-M prove anything?'
Shobha Warrier reports from Thiruvananthapuram where a former UN diplomat is battling a former governor for the Lok Sabha seat.
'What authority has a secular government to administer Hindu temples? When Hindu temples are ruled by secular governments, what religious freedom do Hindus have?'
'It is wrong to assume that it is only after 1991 that we started following this ritual.' 'Ayyappan himself instructed where the temple had to be built, the rituals that had to followed and the route that had to be taken by devotees to the temple.'
Even if they score administratively, state governments ruled by the party suffer from an inability to communicate positively, say observers.
'Growth is predicated on the misery of large sections of people.' 'Maybe Hindutva will be used to suppress any such unrest.'
Modi's NDA is good enough to give a psychological boost to the once 'untouchable' BJP and Modi but if the NDA doesn't get a majority on its own, then walking the last mile will be the greatest challenge of this election for Modi, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
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